Homework in the 21st Century

Recently, I wrote about the way that school is taught these days, and how the basic process hasn’t changed in too many years.

The same is true for how classrooms are managed, especially when it comes to assignments and homework.

One of the most common questions that I get comes from parents who are struggling with the homework issue. Either their child is forgetting that there is homework, not bringing the materials home, or failing to turn the homework in the next day.

Here’s the process:

The teacher tells the class the next day’s assignment.

Your child has to:

hear it
write it down
remember it at the end of the day and bring the proper things home
do it
bring it to school the next day
be able to find it and remember to turn it in at the right time

The only thing that’s changed in this process in a hundred years is that kids have paper and pencils now instead of slates and chalk.

Guess what? Kids today have computers, too, and internet access. Even if the family doesn’t own a computer, there are ones available at the local library.

Here’s a radical idea: why not use the wonder of the internet to solve this problem once and for all? After all, kids had ADD a hundred years ago and struggled with their homework. That part isn’t likely to change, but the process can.

You know, teachers and professors in college give their class a syllabus. It’s an overview of the coming school term, including when assignments are due, what the assignments are, and when to expect tests or special projects.

I’ve mentioned this idea to various teachers over the years and they look at my like I’ve suddenly grown another head. Somehow, that idea is just not possible or practical for them.

Are you telling me they start each school term not knowing what they’re going to teach? Doesn’t the textbook follow a logical order? Are they really so disorganized that they are leaving the possibility of meeting the curriculum goals up to chance? Don’t tell me that something might happen and the schedule would be wrong; that’s what revisions are for.

Here’s what I think the new homework rules should be:

Start each school term with a detailed syllabus. Hand it out the first day and email one to the parents in the first week. Most school forms these days ask for an email address, or at least they should.

If revisions are necessary, hand out a new syllabus and email one to the parents.

Give students the option of emailing their homework to you. They don’t lose it and you don’t lose it (yes, teachers lose things too). Require that they request a receipt when they email it, or set up an automatic reply from your email to let them know you got it.

These few changes can make a huge difference in the lives of ADD kids and their parents. I guarantee you grades will go up once assignments are being turned in regularly.

If you’re a parent, maybe you can share this idea with your child’s teacher, school, or PTA.

If you’re a teacher, I hope you take this to heart. I’ll even make you a deal: if you can’t do this within the framework of your school’s computer system, email me and I’ll tell you how to do it on your own, for free. My advice, and the software for free, with minimal time involved.

Let’s start making a real difference and drag homework into the 21st century.

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Transitions and ADD

Have you ever really thought about what your child’ school day is like? About all the information he has to absorb every day, to understand and remember? It’s more than most of us have to handle each day, and probably more than we had to deal with when we were in school.

One of the characteristics of Attention Deficit Disorder is difficulty making transitions. Transitions are very hard for someone with ADD. Moving from one thing to another - at the speed most people would like us to - can be hard.

Now I know that our minds are constantly transitioning from one thing to another, so it seems odd that to do so when someone else asks us to should be difficult. Still it is.

If you wonder if your ADD child has trouble making transitions, all you have to do is look at their sleep habits. Do they have trouble settling down and going to sleep at night? Do they have trouble waking up the next day? Think about when they were toddlers. Were they more resistant than most to changing from one activity to another? Leaving the playground to go home?

ADD often shows up or begins causing real trouble when a child is in 4th - 6th grade. At that age, kids have moved into the “upper el” and most teachers are adding more subjects to their day and making the move from one to the other more distinct. It’s a way to help prepare them for middle school and changing classrooms throughout the day.

For a kid with ADD, studying math for 50 minutes, then abruptly changing to history or language arts can be a bit of a shock. They need time to make the move from one subject to another - more than a few seconds.

There’s nothing we can do about changing classes and abrupt transitions.

What you can do is this: educate your child on what’s happening. To understand that they will need an extra bit of time to catch up with the new subject will go a long way in helping them adjust.

Then give them a little visualization to work on. Have them picture closing the math part of their brain (or their math book, if that’s easier) and then opening up the next subject’s part of the brain. If they work at doing this, eventually they’ll get pretty good.

Give it a try and see.

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